Women Philosophers

Medieval Women's Spirituality as Philosophy

Hildegard of Bingen (1098—1179), a musician and healer, expressed her philosophy through visions. In medieval thought, the signs found in text hold as much reality as those in nature, making it impossible to ascertain whether she truly saw what she wrote about or if she merely interpreted her states through the lens of authoritative knowledge. It seems these optical impressions troubled her, prompting her to consult her confessor on how to proceed: he advised her to record these visions and systematize them, transforming them from mere personal revelations into guidance for all on how to contemplate the sudden appearance of previously unfamiliar meanings.

Like any Christian mystic, Hildegard's visions speak of humanity's creation by God and humanity's return to God. However, she introduces an element of tender experience into the dynamics of sacred history. The will of God flows like a river, imbued with feeling; thus, the human microcosm can relate to the greater cosmos. For her, God's will is not merely a sign or directive on how to behave, but a vital force of life into which the world is immersed, responding "yes" to God's call. Humanity's sin is not just a breach of rules, but a failure to live that "yes," a deviation from the vibrant and eager experience that only the wicked find alarming. This approach also fostered Hildegard's natural scientific discoveries, particularly in the realm of medicinal plants. The healing quality is termed virtus in Latin, the same word as "virtue," suggesting a correlation between a person's resolve to heal and the strength of the plants that drive away illness.

Many centuries later, another monastic philosopher, Anna Katharina Emmerich (1774—1824), renewed the essence of visions. Physically frail but spiritually strong, she contemplated the Gospel, vividly imagining scenes as if in a novel. Her visions captivated the Romantics; her literary secretary, Clemens Brentano, one of the compilers of the German folklore anthology The Magic Horn of the Boy, recorded her visions, viewing them as a new Gospel suited to the age of novels, where it was essential to understand both the characters' traits and the motivations behind their actions, fostering empathy for the heroes and insight into their inner worlds. Thus, Anna Katharina emerged as a new evangelist.

The central question that occupied her was the reasons behind Judas's betrayal. In her Gospel, she provided a detailed answer, forming an entire narrative. Judas was an enthusiastic disciple of Jesus, sensitive and gifted, with a poetic appreciation for nature and virtue. He quickly recognized his teacher as a miracle worker and saw the beneficial nature of Jesus's teachings. Yet, he suddenly realized that he would have neither children, like a wanderer, nor would his teacher attain family happiness; this dream consumed him and became the specter that obliterated his genuine experiences. No longer were the flowers of Galilee from his teacher's parables delightful to him, nor the smiles of numerous listeners, nor the conversations filled with otherworldly gentleness. Then Judas grasped something even more terrifying—his teacher would never please the masses: the people desired bread and circuses, while his teacher concluded his ministry with a humble meal. Judas emerged as a classicist, yearning for a service to culminate in a celebration at the palace, adhering to all rules, while his teacher felt foreign to him as a romantic, prompting his betrayal in hopes of quiet family happiness for thirty pieces of silver.

Catherine of Siena (1347—1380), a reformer of Italian spirituality, was the first woman to preach from the pulpit and to send official letters to the Pope and bishops. Such bold speech was mirrored by her physical audacity: she could go weeks without eating, and when, in her youth, her mother took her to the warm springs for healing, she immersed herself in the hottest waters to vividly experience the torments of hell, vowing never to allow any unjust actions. Like Dante Alighieri, Catherine believed that the Italian language, as the language of theology and philosophy, would unite all the inhabitants of Italy, regardless of their origins and locations; thus, she conversed freely with both rulers and the destitute. For her, a true perspective on matters is one seen through the eyes of God: in one vision, she felt as though God had taken her heart and placed His own in its stead, leaving her with a wound on her chest, according to legend. The meaning of this vision is that one cannot comprehend the fabric of reality through personal experience alone; one needs a heart that loves the entire world and understands what love truly is.

Catherine was a genuine political thinker. In her letters to kings, generals, and popes, she proposed her vision for an eternal peace on earth. In her view, everyone should take their place: the pope should return from Avignon to Rome, and generals should settle where there are people to protect. Peace will remain elusive as long as actions are driven by threats and penalties, pursuing old debts; for such greed sets a poor example for troops, who then initiate wars and pillaging. Therefore, it is paramount to renounce all collections and politically motivated punishments; instead, each ruler should surround themselves with at least a small council of saints and virtuous individuals. In doing so, political activity will transform from mere honesty to inspiration, where once there were walls, bridges of generosity will arise.

Catherine dictated her final book, Dialogues on Divine Providence, while remaining in a state of ecstasy, overwhelmed by visions. In this book, dialogue transcends mere conversation; it becomes a principle of understanding reality: God evokes awe through His majesty, but even greater astonishment arises from the fact that He loves such wretched and fickle beings as we are. Thus, from the interaction of these two wonders, the possibility of speaking about God is born. The same can be said of politics: the very thought that peace might come to earth is astonishing, yet it is even more remarkable that peace sometimes indeed prevails. If we hold these two wonders in our minds, we will comprehend how to reconcile political adversaries without excessive flattery, revealing that they themselves yearn for peace, even if they have not fully recognized it yet.

Christine de Pizan (1364—1430), a poet and historian, authored the allegorical poem The City of Women. Christine was disheartened that chivalric romances focused solely on the feats of men, with some moralists even asserting that women were merely obstacles in state affairs, war, or on ships, claiming that men acted irrationally due to women. In response, Christine narrates in her poem how she mentally constructs the City of Women. She digs a pit—removing the earth of prejudices against women—and the bricks for the city's walls are tales of illustrious women who glorified their countries and the world. The homes within the city will embody virtues, and the Virgin Mary will dwell in the temple. The essence of this endeavor is that, in French, all names for virtues are feminine; thus, to demonstrate women's virtue, one merely needs to find a common foundation. That foundation turns out to be deep antiquity: Semiramis built cities like no man could, the Amazons fought better than any army, and queens made fewer mistakes than kings. While this may seem to merely defend the role of women in history in literary form, The City of Women holds a philosophical significance: human actions are extensions of the conceptions of virtue perceived as most familiar, suggesting that women can best embody the virtues, all of which bear feminine names. Women simply need a better understanding of history, and upon realizing that women have both built and ruled, they will be empowered to do the same.

Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469—1536) advocated for women's education: in one of his Conversations, he depicted an educated woman, inspired by the daughter of his friend Thomas More. The conversation takes a ridiculous turn when an ignorant monk engages with her: when she mentions that even the Madonna read books before the Annunciation, the monk presumes she meant the Benedictine prayer book. For the monk, prayer books seem to have always existed, while for Erasmus's heroine, as well as for Erasmus himself, selecting the right books is an independent task.

The first academy to admit women was the Arcadian Academy, founded in Rome in 1656 by Queen Christina of Sweden, who had been exiled from Sweden for her excessive fondness for luxury and, upon her arrival in Rome, established a sort of mini-state, a court surrounded by poets and scholars. The academy aimed to politically unite Italy around, in particular, the art of opera, transforming the entire country into a blissful land, a new Arcadia. It was to guide opera librettists and musicians not to be swayed by ready-made examples but to act in accordance with common sense and harmony. The emblem of the academy became a dog, serving as the guardian of good taste.

It is essential to note that at the transition to the modern era, gender identity—the sense of one’s sex as significant in defining human nature—could not always manifest fully because national identity often took precedence. In various countries, among different peoples, philosophy emerged as an independent discipline from scientific and political needs; in other words, it arose from the necessity to act thoughtfully on the international stage and ensure an appropriate level of scientific knowledge within a given nation. For instance, the first independent Croatian philosopher is considered to be Stjepan Gradić (1613—1683), the director of the Vatican Library, who, after an earthquake devastated Dubrovnik, organized relief efforts across Europe and penned a Latin poem about the earthquake to draw the attention of the entire educated world to the event. Gradić engaged in the same pursuits as the scholars of his time, following in the footsteps of Kepler and Galileo: optics, which allowed for a better understanding of the positions of stars, and the question of the acceleration of bodies—in other words, the refinement of observational instruments themselves—because there is nothing better for scientific communication and correspondence among scholars than such clarifications, which immediately involve all of scientific Europe in the work. The primary question that occupied him was the relationship between movement, geometric abstraction, and geometric figures: for instance, following Galileo, he investigated the cone as formed by the rotation of a specific figure inscribed within a circle, from which one could compute the volume of the cone—this raised the question of whether this cone represented an exclusively mathematical projection, realized only when the entire system is set in motion. For Gradić, this involved a philosophical question of utmost importance during the scientific revolution, at a time when everyone had already recognized that the Earth and all that surrounds it is in motion: whether the models created based on moving bodies would serve as a simplification necessary for understanding and ease of calculations, or as a complication opening new perspectives for computation. Gradić resolved this question by indicating that the models being created were not of the bodies themselves but of their limits, thereby anticipating Leibniz’s differential calculus.

Meanwhile, the first independent Finnish philosopher is regarded as the renowned botanist Pehr Forsskål (1732—1763). He maintained that contemporary philosophy could no longer rely solely on a single source, as we can never assert that other peoples are incapable of drawing better conclusions from the same observations. For Forsskål, logical laws were not merely the content of consciousness but a specific method facilitating conclusions. This led to a demand for political freedoms that allow for the unimpeded declaration of any conclusions, thus enabling all thinking individuals to collaboratively refine methods of inquiry. Forsskål operated within the Enlightenment, a period in which scholars not only attracted their colleagues' attention to their calculations but also demonstrated that their calculations had already become a “craft,” existing not only within the walls of academies but also in their practical applications. But we have digressed onto men; let us return to women.

Margaret Cavendish (1623—1673), the Duchess of Newcastle, was the first to forge an image of women in the new science. She depicted a woman who is very disciplined, contemplating her appearance down to the finest details, as expressed in her poem “A Lady in the Dress of Youth”:

Her curls, enchanting and intoxicating, Lightly traced her high and shining brow, And the black eyelids, flashing with bright eyes, Instantly dispelled any notion of modesty. To lend a coral elegance to her blush, She donned shimmering earrings, And a silk headdress, worthy of gossip: So neat the thread, so flawless the seams. And rings would perfect her celestial resemblance, Highlighting nobility in the movement of her hands, The figures of the dance gracefully convey The youthful tremors, filled with delight.

In her novel “The Blazing World,” Cavendish explored how the natural sciences arise. In this novel, a ship's crew perishes, but a scholarly woman who reaches the far north discovers a blazing world of another civilization, one unacquainted with abstract concepts yet capable of traversing cosmic distances or measuring ocean depths. Thus, the new physics is constructed not on the foundation of established knowledge but through the discovery of incredible laws in nature, those aspects of it previously overlooked. The inhabitants of the blazing world are embodiments of experimental science, delving into phenomena and truly sensing them.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759—1797) was born into a rather poor urban family; her mother often suffered from her husband’s reproaches and beatings, awakening in Wollstonecraft a desire to prove that women could wield all the rights of reason that men had hastily seized. When her sister’s husband subsequently behaved inappropriately, asserting that only he could provide for her and their child, her sister, following Wollstonecraft’s counsel, fled from home, leaving the child with her husband—if he believed that nothing could be managed without him, then let him tackle the responsibilities of raising the child. Of course, her sister had to earn a living on her own, and women were paid little at the time. But she rejoiced that she would no longer be reproached for anything, for it was better to live in poverty than to feel guilty before everyone.

Mary Wollstonecraft became interested in philosophy through her friend Jane Arden, whose home housed a vast collection of philosophical works. Together with another friend, Fanny Blood, they founded a school for girls, which allowed them both to educate others and to further their own studies in modern pedagogy and crafts. Mary later fell in love with the artist Henry Fuseli, but he was married and could not respond to her passion. Ultimately, she married William Godwin, a novelist and journalist, a radical democrat, and almost an anarchist, who became her advisor in philosophical inquiries. Their daughter, Mary, would later marry the poet Shelley and become a renowned writer, authoring the novel "Frankenstein," which illustrated that the creation of an artificial human harbors a threat to the world, as such a being would only yearn, suggesting that art is far from omnipotent.

Mary Wollstonecraft was deeply sensitive to art: she was the first to perceive the beauty of the northern Scandinavian landscape. For us today, it is common to admire fjords and snow-covered roads, but in 18th-century England, this was unimaginable. These landscapes were deemed terrifying rather than enchanting. Yet Wollstonecraft, in her "Letters," recognized in the northern nature a true sublime, something that directly captivates the soul and compels one to feel like a part of the universe, fully opened to the enchanting influence of these extraordinary terrains. She believed that northern nature reminds humanity that one can do without many material possessions, allowing individuals to sense the depth of their own feelings, which is often overlooked amidst the bustle of daily affairs.

Wollstonecraft argued for the equality of men and women based on the concept of "standard." In English, this term initially denoted "the proper way of life," but by the latter half of the 18th century, it had come to signify "rule, norm" in philosophy. For instance, Adam Smith (1723—1790) elucidated the similarity between ethics and art by asserting that both possess a "standard," a universally recognized norm towards which one can strive but must never deviate. In contrast to a canon, which is accessible only to masters and perceived intuitively by audiences, the standard was instead aligned with "common sense"; that is, spectators were to understand as well as the masters what is permissible and what is not. Consequently, the standard needed to be articulated as simply and directly as possible so that it could be accepted by a broad audience. In this sense, Wollstonecraft speaks of a "standard of virtue," which is universal for all humans, both men and women. Thus, it cannot be said that a man is only meant to be "strong," while a woman is only meant to be "beautiful"—for, in the end, both man and woman are moving towards the same moral goals.

However, some may argue that women are always more emotional than men, and thus true moral equality does not exist. To this, Wollstonecraft responded that excessive emotions in women have developed historically, as men often abandoned women, betrayed them, or behaved unworthily. If men acted rationally, women would likewise be no less rational, and instead of excessive sensitivity, they would possess a noble sentiment.

But how can equality between men and women be achieved when, for instance, a man goes out to earn a living while a woman stays at home? Then, again, each develops their own skills, and a man's skills are deemed more vital for the family's survival than those of a woman. Wollstonecraft remains undeterred: if men and women received education together, families would only grow stronger. Even if girls were taught sewing and boys navigation in a joint school, they would witness each other's abilities and thus be able to support one another in any endeavors. In Wollstonecraft’s view, separate schools lead to madness: men become selfish, while women fall into hysteria when faced with insurmountable difficulties. A coeducational institution should foster camaraderie and assistance in challenging situations, thus bestowing the institution of marriage with its true meaning—a love that is free of reproach and does not acknowledge them.

Wollstonecraft stands at the forefront of the great movement for women's emancipation, which found supporters even in our country, such as the early Soviet activist Alexandra Kollontai. The ideas of Wollstonecraft remain pertinent today. For example, we often attribute differences in habits and skills between men and women to ancient times when men hunted while women tended to domestic duties, leading to the notion that men are irresponsible and women poor hunters. Yet, in reality, in ancient times, women often served as providers, as hunting was not consistently successful compared to gathering, and men were tasked with constructing shelters and protecting them from wild beasts, snakes, and insects, thereby requiring considerable domesticity. If men are more often out of the home even now, it is only because, historically, they found themselves at the forefront of politics, meeting more frequently and thus feeling less inclined to think about domestic affairs. The inequality between men and women can be explained historically, just as the unsuccessful examples of equality can be cited: for instance, women's involvement in politics in the USSR often boiled down to merely mimicking men's habits rather than achieving actual equality.

Hannah Arendt (1906—1975) was a student of Heidegger, who, like many, found herself in exile after the rise of the Nazis. In some aspects, her political thought aligned with that of the previously mentioned political thinker Carl Schmitt, who attempted, conversely, to serve the new regime; in other respects, she diverged from him and ultimately succeeded in refuting his ideas.

Schmitt posed an important question in political philosophy: if civil society can condemn any official for treason through Parliament, where, then, is the balance of the three branches of power as articulated by classical liberalism in the thoughts of Locke, Hume, or Mill? It appears that victory in politics would not go to those who seek balance and consensus, but to those who are willing to take the greatest risks and undertake the most daring, decisive actions. Thus, the modern parliament becomes indistinguishable from the city commune of the Renaissance or even the ancient polis, prepared to execute for the sake of security, believing that, at least for a time, the spectacle of execution would stifle desires or incite rebellion against injustice. Schmitt reasoned like a man of the modern age, for whom desires exist outside the notion of glory, merely as an infection, whereby one person infects another with their will.

However, Hannah Arendt was much more attuned to the nuances of ancient philosophy. She argued that it is erroneous to speak of collective guilt in the case of the ancient polis, but rather about a collective experience of wrongdoing. A wrongful execution, such as that of Socrates, bore not moral consequences but rather eventful ones; indeed, Athens suffered greatly after that decision. We may now state that the citizens' decision to condemn Socrates was symptomatic of a general decline that ultimately led to Athens’ military downfall, but we speak of symptoms because we base our understanding on the modern conception of "political consciousness," capable of anticipating the consequences of actions; if it does not do so, it is deemed infected by a criminal political passion. Unlike Schmitt, who reduced law to the exercise of power, Arendt understood that law also embodies the choice of an entire people to allow or disallow crimes within their midst. By condemning Socrates, Athens did not violate the distribution of powers or the measure of responsibility of each political subject; Athens violated its own right to exist.

Arendt also disputed the notion of "taste" as understood by Kant, as a perception of the world that deliberately avoids evil. According to Kant, if taste falters, it does so only because it discredits its own desire, wishing for different and contradictory things at once. In contrast, Hannah Arendt asserted that often, the error of taste stems not from desires but from a reluctance to befriend oneself. For her, evil does not signify a relaxed will but rather an unjust will, a malicious self-deception born of a refusal to be a friend to oneself. In this sense, she shared Socrates' position, asserting that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it, and she did not align with Kant's view that taste for civilization and enlightenment is already a form of love for civilization and enlightenment. Indeed, love can also be performative and false; Kant did not fully consider, Arendt believed, how often people act irrationally because they seek to present themselves in a certain light.

Another matter is that for Kant, taste is a sovereign instance that cannot be exploited. One may take advantage of excessive trust or corrupted taste, but not of taste itself. Kant's system did not allow for any form of "mad" taste, such as one that perceives only the nightmarish and thus consents to the usurpation of power. It is precisely this stance that explains one of Kant’s assertions, which seems most scandalous to many: that one must not lie even out of compassion; therefore, one must reveal to the police a criminal who has taken refuge in one’s home, even if that criminal has become a friend. Kant meant to convey that the police would not abuse the order, as they are tasked with monitoring abuses of that order; it is impossible to simultaneously supervise abuse and perpetrate it. Kant, however, did not take into account that in the twentieth century, the very word “order” often came to be understood in an entirely different light—as a mere synonym for dictatorship. Arendt consistently cautioned against this misinterpretation.